Annoying Stofa terms
Stéphanie and I have become a pair of those strange people you sometimes hear about who don’t watch TV… it started when I got back home from Switzerland and didn’t install my TV tuner in my computer right away. Suddenly a month had passed without a TV, and it wasn’t something which I particularly missed.
The silly thing is that we have the big plan at Stofa, paying some 200 DKK (~$30) a month for nothing. Not exactly nothing, since we’re also getting our Internet connection through Stofa, so I thought that we were required to have a TV subscription too.
That is true if you get your Internet over their cable network, but Stofa also offers their Internet through ADSL, and for that you don’t need any TV subscription. So today I called Stofa to have them switch us over and terminate the TV subscription.
Of course they were happy to help, but at a price… First of all it turns out that you only have four chances a year to cancel your subscription, once every quarter. And as if that wasn’t enough, you have to do it two months in advance… So we have to keep paying for the full package until December.
Couldn’t we just switch to a smaller and cheaper package? Of course we can, but at a price… Switching would save us 150 DKK a month, but the switch itself costs 500 DKK! Those bastards have us exactly where they want us!
Rune:
In my opinion, it’s a total waste of time watching TV. So I think, it’s strange that people complain about lack of spare time when they waste hours in front of the TV every single day.
14 August 2006, 4:23 pmMartin Geisler:
Agreed — not watching TV has given me more free time. Of course I sort of had that free time anyway, but it’s easier to make good use of it without a TV.
14 August 2006, 5:14 pmMikkel:
Spare me the holier-than-thou parenting. If it’s something good and you’re enjoying it, you’re not wasting your time. The real problem is finding something good.
14 August 2006, 8:05 pmMartin Geisler:
The problem is that I wasn’t really enjoying myself while spending an evening infront of the TV, it was just a waste of time…
14 August 2006, 8:46 pmMikkel:
Well that’s my point. You shouldn’t just spend an evening watching random stuff. Turn on the TV if something good is on and turn it off afterwards. Instead of claiming that the concept of TV is wrong, I’m just saying they generally broadcast pretty poor TV.
15 August 2006, 11:37 amprunus:
I’m a living proof that there’s (even longterm) life without television. I do not own TV for 8 years.
15 August 2006, 11:04 pmMikkel:
It’s not about survival. Anyway I’m a living proof TV doesn’t kill you but only makes you a weird psycho hermit posting comments about TV at 1:26 at night.
16 August 2006, 1:22 amRune:
TV just normalizes you! So you’re just a plain dane ;-)
16 August 2006, 10:42 pmMikkel:
I watch TV to keep my homicidal tendencies in check :)
Seriously though, you would probably have a hard time finding a more neurotic person than me. So don’t call me normal or I’ll have to open a few cans of whoop-ass on you.
17 August 2006, 12:07 amRune:
Neurotic! That’s like the slogan for normal people!
17 August 2006, 6:57 pmDan V. P. Christiansen:
First of all it turns out that you only have four chances a year to cancel your subscription, once every quarter.
I’m fairly certain those terms are illegal. I once read about a similar case, where you could only cancel a subscription once a year, and that was illegal.
20 August 2006, 1:53 amMartin Geisler:
Really? I would love to see them having to change their practices…
But a quick search on dk.videnskab.jura doesn’t give me much hope :-( And forbrug.dk is also not so informative about this.
20 August 2006, 6:33 pmDan V. P. Christiansen:
I’d say it’s worth posting in that newsgroup. Perhaps even better would be to call one of the many places where you can get free legal aid. At least it’s worth a try :)
21 August 2006, 11:32 am